(Sara-Jane)

I don’t need to stand here and tell any of you how much I miss Mum, or how much I love Mum. Anyone who knew her, and who she was - as a friend, a daughter, a sister, a niece, a cousin, an aunt - will have a good idea of just how perfect she was as a mum. Every single day since we lost her I have woken up and told myself to do Mum proud, to do everything with Mum in mind. There’s a simple reason for this, and that is that she deserves it. She deserves for me to be strong, and to do right by her. I said to Mum often that in life you reap what you sow, and Mum sowed love and kindness. Nothing for Mum was too much trouble for me then, and it isn’t now. And somehow, from somewhere, Mum has given me the strength to get me through to this point. 

The poem I’ve chosen to read has brought me a lot of comfort in recent weeks. It seizes on my recent realisation that we are made up of the good things others give us; the love and kindness people show to us. And how we can carry that on by turning the love we feel for those we have lost into making the world a better place. Another way of enabling what Mum did in life to echo through eternity. Mum made our world a better place – I’m going to try and continue that as best I can.

Epitaph - Merrit Malloy

When I die

Give what’s left of me away

To children

And old men that wait to die.

And if you need to cry,

Cry for your brother

Walking the street beside you.

And when you need me,

Put your arms

Around anyone

And give them

What you need to give to me.

I want to leave you something,

Something better

Than words

Or sounds.

Look for me

In the people I’ve known

Or loved,

And if you cannot give me away,

At least let me live on in your eyes

And not your mind.

You can love me most

By letting

Hands touch hands,

By letting bodies touch bodies,

And by letting go

Of children

That need to be free.

Love doesn’t die,

People do.

So, when all that’s left of me

Is love,

Give me away.